


Love Is Watching Someone Die

by whitchry9



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Death, Depression, Disease, Funeral, Gen, Love, Medication, Post Reichenbach, Seizures, War, degenerative illness, die - Freeform, dying, motor problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 9,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone jumps to conclusions when they use the word love. No one really understands the feelings John and Sherlock have for each other, or what it means to John when Sherlock is sick. WARNING: major character death. This has 12 chapters plus a prologue and epilogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been mostly posted on my profile at fanfiction.net and will be updated here as it is there.

The Greeks had it right. They had four different words for love, not one all encompassing term that could mean something so weak as mild affection, or something so strong that you would do absolutely anything for that person.

No, they were brilliant. They really were. Four terms. Four kinds of love. 

Sexual love, which was always what people jumped to when you used the word, even though it wasn't true. A friendship sort of love, brotherly love, love for your fellow man. Love for members of your family. And lastly, the highest form of love. Agape. Unconditional love for a person despite of character flaws or weaknesses, despite how screwed up and awful that person may be, how much they annoy you, and yet you still love them. No one ever thought of that kind of love. And why not? Because you'd think that sort of unconditional love would be the strongest, especially compared to the sexual attraction and passion that was Eros. Sexual love was hormones. Chemicals. Hot flesh rubbing against another as they writhed and danced. But what happened after they left the bed? There would be no heart wrenching panic when you came home and they weren't there, none of that agony felt when they could be in danger, and nothing compared to when you were prepared to give up your life for theirs in an instant, a heartbeat, as long as it took for that impulse to travel from your brain to your muscles to jump in front of them and save their life. 

No, that was real love. 


	2. Chapter One

Sherlock had suspected something. Not at first, he ignored it, because the symptoms were so minor and really, he ignored anything related to his transport unless it was completely debilitating. 

 

Really. They were so minor. They could have been anything. Even John, if he had told him, would have dismissed it as something inconsequential, like a virus or a bacterial infection. 

But when it got to the point where the symptoms were interfering with his work (although _still_ not to the point where John noticed) he realized something was definitely the matter.

 

So he went to the lab. Shooed Molly out. Borrowed equipment. Did tests. 

Got results. Needed to do further tests. 

Called John. Told him he wouldn't be home tonight, not till tomorrow.

Snuck into the MRI machine at 3 in the morning.

Got results. Needed to do further tests. 

Pleaded and begged Molly to do a spinal tap. Talked her through it. Hurt like hell. 

Ran tests. Waited.

And by morning, he knew.

 

For one of the only times in his life, Sherlock was truly horrified. 

(When John was wearing the bomb. When he saw the hound and couldn't explain it away. And when he stood on the roof and looked down at John, knowing how much it would break him and yet, knowing if he didn't that everyone he cared for would die.)

And now. 

 

He wasn't sure what happened after that. It was a bit of a blur. Rather like... shock, he supposed. Shock with no blanket.

He didn't make it home that night. He only knew that because when he did find himself at home, must have been the next day, John was livid. But he couldn't face John yet. 

Muttered something about an experiment and a pounding headache, which was true. Side effect of the spinal tap. 

John probably saw something in Sherlock, saw that this was true. He waited to yell at him till the next day, because Sherlock slept for almost 20 hours. (Right there, John should have noticed something was wrong. But he didn't. And Sherlock was both thankful and infuriated for that.)

 

He took the yelling. Felt bad. Told John he was sorry.

And he really, truly was. Just not for the reasons John believed.

But there would be time for that later.

But not too much later.

 

John worked that day. 

While he was at the surgery, Sherlock did research. Extremely depressing research. He only learned things that he already knew, having fleetingly shown an interest in it years ago and never getting around to deleting it.

But this time it was different. 

Because he was looking at his future in painful detail. These weren't just symptoms anymore, these were what his life would turn into. Not just a time line, but a countdown.

Everything was there, horrifying, in black and white painfully clear details. 

He almost wanted to destroy his laptop. Or the internet. The world. 

Everything.

 

He settled for sulking for the next couple of days. 

John assumed it was because of the lack of interesting cases. Mrs Hudson tried to cheer him up, telling him it would only be a matter of time before a nice murder turned up. 

He tried to smile and nod, but they had no clue. 

 

By the end of the week he was sick of sulking. He accepted the very dull case Lestrade brought him (only a four at the most) and solved it in less than a day, even going so far as to chase the killer down, John in tow.

After all, he might as well enjoy it while he still could. 

 

He didn't know how much longer he would be able to work for. The initial symptoms, most notably  memory lapses, would only get worse and physical symptoms would soon begin to show. 

That was probably the worst part.

Because out of all the research, there was one phrase that stood out in his mind and wouldn't go away, no matter how many times he tried to delete it.

 

It was a month later that the shock wore off. It was as if there had been wax paper blocking his vision and when it was peeled off, Sherlock could see that it was time to tell John. Especially now that the first physical symptoms were beginning to manifest. He couldn't hide those from John. 

He knew it would be the hardest thing he'd ever have to do. 

Except for perhaps... that.

 

“John,” he began one day. It was sunny that morning, and John had opened the curtains, insisting that it was healthy for Sherlock to get the occasion ray. He was lying on the sofa curled up, back to the sun, secretly enjoying how the sun warmed him. 

“Sherlock,” John replied, noting with a smile how much Sherlock looked like a cat in that instant.

Sherlock rolled over slowly, knowing that no matter how many more times he rehearsed this conversation in his mind, that it would not be any easier. 

He didn't speak for a moment, and that silence spoke volumes to John, who carefully folded up the newspaper he was reading and laid it on the table.

“John,” he hesitated, hating that he had to say it, “I'm going to die.”

John examined his face carefully, not entirely sure of the expected response.

“Well, yeah Sherlock. Everyone's going to die.”

Sherlock shook his head softly. 

“I have 6 months. Maybe more. Probably less.”

John forgot how to breathe for a moment. For a lifetime. When he did recall, he took a shaky breath. 

“How?...”

Sherlock looked over at him.

 _With pity,_ John realized. _He's the one dying and he's looking at me with pity._

“Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” he said slowly, avoiding John's stare. “The sporadic form.”

He looked him in the eye briefly. “Heard of it?”

John only continued to stare at him. Blankly. 

Sherlock waited, seeing the shock on his face.

John didn't know how long they sat there for, probably only seconds, a minute at most, but it seemed to be lifetimes and a single heartbeat all at once.

He nodded, surprised that his body was still listening to his brain. 

“Some,” he managed. 

“I have some reading material prepared for you,” he said carefully. “If you'd like.”

“How long have you known?” John heard his own voice and was shocked by it. And at the same time, a bit frightened. He didn't recognize it all low and growling and demanding. 

Sherlock flinched slightly.

“About a month,” he whispered. 

John slumped in his chair. 

After an eternity he spoke, barely loud enough for either himself or Sherlock to hear.

“All right. All right. I'll go make some tea and you can get that reading material for me,” he paused to take a shaky breath, “and then we can talk about this.”

He got up without waiting for Sherlock's answer, and began unsteadily towards the kitchen.  

Sherlock watched him go, feeling something that he recognized as shame, but had no idea why. 


	3. Chapter Two

They spent that day in quiet, John drinking tea to soak up the shock. Sherlock perched quietly, letting John come to terms with it. It had, after all, taken him a month. 

But John was strong, Sherlock knew that for sure, and figured by the end of the day, he would be yelling at him for not telling him earlier.

Sherlock was amused to find that he was incorrect.

 

John went to bed without yelling or raising his voice. Actually, he went to bed without speaking to Sherlock at all. 

It was the next morning, when Sherlock was playing his violin, perhaps a little loudly for 6am, that John came stomping down the stairs and demanded he stop.

And of course, that demand led to more yelling, on a completely different topic.

Sherlock had known it was inevitable. 

So he sat patiently and took it, even managed to look ashamed of himself, look guilty, look like he felt bad. And John finally finished, exhausted from the anger, and slumped into his chair.

And then Sherlock realized that he wasn't _just_ looking ashamed and guilty, he actually felt that way. Because even though he thought he was protecting John, just like he had thought he had when he jumped off that roof, really, he was only hurting him.

That time it was necessary. This time it was not.

 

So he did something he though he would never do.

He gave John a hug.

It was rather awkward, especially as John was sitting down, and Sherlock was much taller than him to begin with, but it was a hug.

John looked shocked.

“Do you need a blanket?” Sherlock smirked at him.

John only glared for a moment, then softened.

“That was... uh... good. Yeah,” he nodded. 

 

They sat in their respective armchairs. They knew what they had to talk about, but neither wanted to bring it up.

So Sherlock began, as if it was any other of the 'normal' conversations that took place in Baker street.

“I want to work as long as possible.”

John nodded. Sherlock had suspected more of an argument.

“And I don't want them to know.”

John nodded again. That he understood.

“It will-” he hesitated. “It will become more obvious.” He looked Sherlock directly in the eye. “They will start to notice the symptoms, and we will have to tell them. Maybe in as little as a month.”

Sherlock nodded. He knew that. He knew that a month ago. He knew that before he even spoke. And he hated that he knew it.

“Until then.”

John nodded. He knew that Sherlock hated showing any weakness, even if it was just a cold, so this, this would be devastating. 

 

So they went to a crime scene the next day. Double homicide. Sherlock proved that it was actually a murder suicide. Well, closer to a suicide pact, as he so kindly pointed out to Anderson. 

Sherlock was rather disappointed. No chase. No legwork. 

 

Sherlock sulked for the rest of the week. John finished up work at the surgery, explaining to Sarah that he wouldn't be able to continue working after that. She was bewildered, but John explained he couldn't say why, at least not now. 

She saw something in his eyes, some sort of broken sadness.

And she understood. 

 

The next week, there was talk of a serial killer. Three murders, seemingly unrelated, because all the victims had died in different ways. One of a gunshot, another of a knife wound, and the last by strangling.

But Sherlock had noticed something in the crime scene photos and demanded that Lestrade let him in on the case. He agreed, bewildered, and John trailed behind him, slightly concerned, but not wanting to show it.

Sherlock pointed out to everyone in his usual fashion how the murders were indeed the work of a serial killer, and how. John grinned as he made everyone look stupid. Typical.

The grin faded when Sherlock plotted to catch the serial killer, noting his pattern of hunting, and determining he would strike that night, and to top it off, knew it would be another strangling.

They had a fighting match that all of Scotland yard probably heard. 

Sherlock won. John was furious. He went along though of course, figuring he may as well be there when Sherlock got hurt, as was typical in cases like this. 

 

It was never of great satisfaction for him to be right about these sorts of things. 

As predicted, the serial killer indeed surfaced that night, in the spot Sherlock predicted, and preyed upon the planted policeman, just as Sherlock predicted, trying to strangle him. 

Predicted. 

And of course, as John predicted, Sherlock indeed got hurt. To be honest, it wasn't in the way John had expected, falling off a roof chasing the killer or perhaps a stab wound from fighting him.

No, it was Sherlock being unusually clumsy, tripping over a kerb in his rush to catch the culprit.

He was more irritated that Donovan caught him than he was that John insisted they go for x-rays of his wrist. (Sherlock was right about that though, not broken.)

But John saw the thing he feared most, progression.

Sherlock would have never fallen over anything before. Before. That's what it was now.

Before. And after. 


	4. Chapter Three

“Sherlock,” John began, two days after the serial killer incident.

Sherlock was sprawling on the couch, bemoaning how his violin playing ability was affected by the stupid bandage John made him wear on his wrist. 

He paused for a moment.

“What,” he said flatly.

“How did you determine that was what you had? Like, for a sure diagnosis.”

Sherlock sighed, knowing John wouldn't like his answer.

“An EEG. And an MRI. Andaspinaltap.”

He mumbled the last words, pushing them together.

John still heard. 

“You mean, you went to a hospital willingly to get a spinal tap done, and didn't even insist I come or do it. Not to mention that I didn't hear about it from any of the doctors at...” he trailed off, noticing Sherlock's disapproving look that usually meant he was wrong. 

“Okay, so you didn't go to the hospital. And you can't do it yourself. At least you shouldn't be able to.” He looked at Sherlock, who shook his head. Relieved, John continues. “Alright. So then how did you do it? Blackmail someone?” John was joking, but his smile fell as he noticed Sherlock didn't deny that. 

“Hang on, you didn't actually blackmail someone, did you?”

“Not really,” Sherlock admitted. “Molly.”

John looked shocked. 

“I talked her through it.”

“You're an idiot.”

Sherlock nodded. 

John burst out laughing.

Sherlock looked shocked. This was hardly a laughing matter.

“You, are a bloody idiot,” he choked out while practically rolling out of his chair.

Sherlock smiled. He didn't disagree. 

When John finished laughing, Sherlock shared some more information, which he found fascinating. John probably not so much.

“You know the only definitive diagnosis is through brain biopsy.”

John stared at him.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “No, I didn't do that yet. You can after, if you'd like.”

John paled.

“Don't,” he said shortly. “Just, don't.” Sherlock began to open his mouth and John cut him off. “Not yet. I can't talk about it yet.”

“Let me know when,” Sherlock said, nodding slowly. 

 

It wasn't the next day.

“No,” John said the next morning.

“I didn't say anything!” Sherlock protested.

“I could feel you staring at me,” John replied, spinning around and pointing a finger at him.

Sherlock was silent for a second.

“We can talk about who we're going to tell and when we're going to tell them.”

“Oh,” Sherlock said. “Do we have to?”

John rolled his eyes.

“D'you know how dense you can be some times?”

Sherlock grinned.

“Enlighten me.”

“Of course we have to tell them. Just cause they're not the world's only consulting detective doesn't mean they will not notice anything. I'm pretty sure Lestrade already found it suspicious that you fell over a kerb.”

“I blamed Anderson. He was standing nearby.”

John snorted. “I bet he believed that.”

“Of course he did,” Sherlock replied with an entirely straight face. “Anderson's face does that to people.”

There was a beat until they both burst out laughing. 

 

“It does make me feel a bit special you know,” Sherlock said out of the blue one day. John only looked at him, confused. Sherlock rolled his eyes. “This disease. It's rare. And the type that I have, sporadic, is most common with people in their 60s. Cases in people below 50 are rare. It's just fitting, that's all,” he remarked bitterly.

John wasn't sure how to respond.

“And if I have seizures that's even more uncommon. Rare cubed! Takes notes please John.”

John winced.

Sherlock rolled his eyes again. “We are going to have to talk about this. Soon.”

John nodded. “Just not yet.”


	5. Chapter Four

John watched as Sherlock turned into a newborn giraffe. At least that's what he thought some days. It was both amusing and awful to watch at the same time. It hurt. And it hurt Sherlock. No matter how much he attempted to hide the pain of breaking, it was evident. 

 

They went to a crime scene on the one month anniversary that Sherlock had told John. Both knew it was the day. Neither wished to celebrate.

Sherlock determined it was a home invasion gone wrong. Very sloppy.

But he stumbled around the house instead of swooping like he normally did while pointing out the clues that led to his deductions. While John was used to seeing it by now, it hurt no less. Lestrade looked on uneasily. Anderson and Sally whispered to each other and smirked when they thought no one was looking.

But they both saw. Sherlock gritted his teeth. But when John heard 'cripple' and 'attention' in the same breath from Anderson, he couldn't just stand there.

“Problem Anderson?” he asked a bit too loudly. 

Anderson's head snapped up. In that moment, John was proud of his strangely good hearing. 

Anderson took a second, then smirked. “Sally and I were just discussing how the freak here probably got hurt. She thought that someone just got entirely too sick of him and pushed him down some stairs, while I was partial to the idea that someone stood on his cape when he tried to take off.”

In one swift movement, John had Anderson in a headlock. He never knew what hit him. 

“Listen carefully,” John said under his breath, ensuring that no one else would be able to hear him. “I could kill you right here, right now, but I'm not going to. Wanna know why? Cause I just don't want to contaminate a crime scene. Anywhere else... well... I'll snap your neck if you insult Sherlock again. Got it?”

Anderson whimpered. 

John was satisfied and released him.

“Not bad,” he commented with a smile. “I could teach you some moves next time.” He ignored Lestrade's bewildered stare and Sally's twitterings.

With a little wave, he returned to Sherlock's side.

He whispered at him “Done?”

Sherlock nodded almost imperceptibly. 

“What was that?” Sherlock murmured.

“A lesson. Shall we return to our humble abode?”

“Surely you're not referring to Baker Street?” Sherlock replied with a fake gasp. 

With only a smile, John took Sherlock's arm, completely naturally, and led him out of the house to summon a cab. 

He felt the stares, but just didn't care.

 

John was devastated when he realized soon Sherlock would not be able to manage stairs. He was sure Sherlock had already realized this himself, and had probably come up with a solution or deleted the problem altogether. 

He didn't ask though. 

 

The morning after the Anderson incident, John stood in the kitchen and declared “I'm ready.”

“Really?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

“Well, no,” John admitted, “but I'm never going to be more ready, so...”

Each armed with a cuppa, they sat in their respective chairs. 

“I want to die here,” Sherlock announced.

“Wow,” John breathed. 

“It can wait if you're not ready.”

“No,” John shook his head. “It's just, I don't even know. You seem so damn calm about it and I'm...just a mess.”

“That's just how it works.”

John nodded. 

“Okay. Continue.”

“You'll be able to handle it on your own at first, but as it gets closer to the end...” he trailed off, seeing John's horrified expression.

“Keep going,” he waved a hand at him. 

“You'll probably need help, and I'm sure my _devoted brother_ ,” Sherlock added perhaps a bit too much sarcasm to that, even for him, “will provide anything you need.”

John nodded. He was pretty sure it hadn't sunk in yet. Still. Or ever.

“And,” Sherlock added, “no extraordinary measures. No intubation. No CPR. Nothing like that.” He eyed John. “But I will allow IV fluids, noninvasive feeding tubes, pain meds, and oxygen. Got it?”

John nodded numbly.

“Okay,” he said slowly, the implications of agreeing to that slowly sinking in.


	6. Chapter Five

The first person they told was Lestrade. He was the logical choice, seeing as he would begin wondering about Sherlock's coordination issues, and likely assume drugs.   
It was awful.   
John told him. Alone. Told him not to treat Sherlock any differently (like that was gonna happen). Lestrade didn't believe him. Thought it was a joke, and an awful one at that.  
But John's face didn't waver, didn't smile, didn't speak the words Lestrade was hoping for. 'It's all a joke.'  
Nope. Those words never came.   
Lestrade looked like he wanted to cry.  
He did that night when he went home, sobbing on the couch for the army doctor who was watching the world's only consulting detective die. And even if John said they weren't a couple, they obviously had feelings for each other. Anyone could see that.  
He cried for John and he cried for Sherlock and he cried for Mrs Hudson losing one of her boys. And lastly, he cried for himself.  
And in the morning, he got up like nothing had happened and called Sherlock up for a case. 

They didn't want to tell Mrs Hudson. They didn't want to hurt her. It was the last thing anyone wanted. But Mrs Hudson was strong. She had proved that when she was attacked by the Americans and after Sherlock's 'death'. (Sherlock was right about what he'd said about her. England would fall if she left Baker street.)  
Her boys meant so much to her.  
So John made excuses as long as he could (It's an experiment. Poison. Nerve damage. Pretending. Hurt on a case. I don't even know.) Until it was no longer a possibility of hiding it.   
John told her. Sherlock never wanted to be there when other people found out. Didn't want the pity, the tears, the attempts at comforting.  
John teared up a little as he told her.  
Mrs Hudson held him, warm and motherly smelling like biscuits and sorrow.  
She didn't cry until the next day making squares. She pulled them out of the oven with her potholders. They slipped and she watched, detached, as a blister formed.   
She only realized she was crying when a tear dropped onto her reddened hand. She collapsed into a chair and sobbed over the kitchen table.  
When she got up after running out of tears, she realized that she had dropped the squares on the floor. She left them there for two days. 

Mycroft knew. No one ever figured out how, but he knew.   
They got home one day from a case and he was in their flat. Simply sitting in John's chair. Sherlock didn't even blink. John felt a tiny flame of rage but doused it when Mycroft stood up and moved away from his seat.  
“Ah Mycroft. Diet doing poorly I see. I suppose you've heard I'm dying.”  
“Naturally,” Mycroft replied stiffly, staring down at his umbrella.   
John glanced between the two, wondering if he should leave.  
“No, you can stay,” both brothers said at the same time. They glared at each other. John was terrified. He decided to sit on the couch, out of the blast radius if something were to happen.   
“So?” Sherlock continued.  
“Can an older brother not stop by when he hears that his younger sibling has less than six months to live?” Mycroft's gaze was still sweeping the carpet.  
“Yes, they can,” Sherlock replied tersely, “except when they're you.”  
Mycroft's eyes snapped up to meet Sherlock's.  
“Alright,” he said softly, and yet somehow there was more rage in this than in most screams from soldiers that John had heard. “If you do need anything, you know how to contact me.”  
Sherlock snickered as Mycroft exited the room.   
John was still a bit shocked.  
“How... how did he know?”  
Sherlock shrugged, then pushed John off the couch so he could sit on it.  
“I've told you many times John, he is the British government. And the British government,” he whispered, “knows everything.”  
John could hardly argue with that.

Sherlock insisted there was no one else worth telling.   
“Molly?” John suggested.  
“Oh.”  
Which was how John ended up in the morgue that afternoon with Molly sobbing into his chest while he looked, rather detached, at a dead body. John wondered how he died.   
He went home later after Molly ran out of tears and apologized profusely for both the overly emotional display and the tear stains on his jacket.   
Molly cried so much the next two days that she thought she might die of dehydration.


	7. Chapter Six

He became more clumsy, more uncoordinated, and John couldn't bear to watch. 

The man who had once been capable of soaring between rooftops of buildings and fighting off multiple enemies trained in martial arts with ease could no longer navigate stairs. Safely. John no longer let him do them alone, insisting he be below him in case he fell. 

There was only mild protest.

 

They still went on cases, but no longer did the legwork that Mycroft so detested and Sherlock so enjoyed. John found it incredibly unfair.

They did go to the scene because that was what Sherlock lived for. Observing all the little bits that seemed coincidental and entirely unrelated until Sherlock gathered them up and magically formed them into a work of art. That's really what it was. Art. Sherlock could call it science if he liked but John had seen people do things sort of like this before, not this obviously, but other fantastic things that he could only describe as art.

 

It was a Sunday when they were called in for a body. Badly burned, hard to tell anything.

Lestrade now only called John about cases, not Sherlock. 

“Female. In her 20s or 30s, bloody impossible to tell really, she's so badly burned. We've got nothing so far.”

“We'll be there. Address?”

Lestrade gave it to him, then hesitated.

“We found the body on the fourth floor.”

John knew what this meant. Knew what he was saying, but not wanting to say those words.

John glanced over at Sherlock, lying on the couch playing with a bouncy ball.

“It'll be okay,” he replied, somewhat uneasily.

“Are you sure? Cause we can just get you the photos-”

“No, no,” he assured Lestrade. And himself too really. “We'll manage.”

And with that he hung up.

“Case Sherlock!” he announced. 

Sherlock practically fell off the couch in excitement. 

“Better be good,” he retorted, “that last one was hardly worth my time. Except for what you did to Anderson.”

There were two other cases in there, but they were dull so Sherlock probably deleted them. However, they were no more dull than the case Sherlock does remember, so it must have been the Anderson incident that made it memorable and worth saving.

John was rather pleased with this. 

 

John questioned his decision later as he watched Sherlock struggle up the stairs, which Lestrade failed to mention were steep, narrow, and without a railing. Because John would have most definitely declined his invitation then.

Sherlock had given John a glare when they got there that clearly stated 'if you try to help me I will rip you to shreds.' So John only followed slowly behind. He could feel Lestrade and Donovan staring. Anderson, thank goodness, wasn't working this case. He suspected it may have had something to do with their last encounter.

 

“What's with the freak?” Donovan enquired not so discretely to Lestrade, ensuring that everyone as well as Sherlock could hear. 

Lestrade did not reply.

“Well?” Donovan asked insistently.

Sherlock spun around so fast John thought he would fall down the stairs. 

“My brain can no longer take any of yours and Anderson's stupidity and is literally melting.”

She stared at him in disbelief. 

“Really,” Sherlock replied to her unasked question.

He continued struggling up the stairs and John followed behind, smirking to himself as Donovan only stood there shocked and Lestrade tried hard not to laugh.


	8. Chapter Seven

Soon Sherlock could no longer walk unassisted. 

Crutches weren't too much help, as his arms were weakened as well as his legs. They worked for short amounts of times, but Sherlock hated them, just as John knew he would. 

It was so awful, because Sherlock wanted so much to be independent, and yet there wasn't really anything that John could do to help. 

He had acquired a wheelchair near the beginning, and it sat in the corner of the living room, partially obscured by boxes and books. 

John unburied it and didn't say anything. 

Sherlock mostly stayed in bed or on the couch, and when he did have to move, crawled or insist John help him. Help him meaning 'carry like a child'. 

John still didn't mention the wheelchair. 

It was only when John was upstairs in his bedroom one day, cleaning up, when he heard a crash and ran downstairs to find Sherlock lying in the hallway to his bedroom, that John insisted the wheelchair be used. 

Sherlock sulked for the rest of the day, but complied when John threatened to take away his violin, citing the reason 'no broken bones' as just cause. 

John also shot down the multiple experiments Sherlock posited that he could do with the wheelchair. Again, on the basis of no broken bones. Again, Sherlock sulked. 

He didn't want to go out after that. Most things weren't a big deal, it wasn't like he went out to do the shopping or anything really, but crime scenes were now a no. 

Sherlock sent John with the laptop again, like he had done for that case so long ago. 

Anderson gave odd looks, but said nothing, likely remembering John's very real and terrifying threat. Lestrade was supportive. He'd send evidence to the flat for Sherlock to test and experiment on, but adamantly refused to send bodies there. Sherlock sulked about that for a while, then sent John to the morgue with the laptop. 

It was odd, but it worked. And while John was concerned about leaving Sherlock home alone, at least he could supervise. Remotely, but still supervise. 

 

Most of his cases were now solved from his bed where he spent most of his days. It was a common sight for the webcam to show Sherlock perched in his bed, thankfully wearing more than the sheet he'd worn the first time around. 

 

Sherlock often moaned from his location in his bed or on the couch about being bored. 

John couldn't really blame him; he'd be pissed too. 

 

Days ran into weeks that were marked only by a steady decline that John was both shocked and enthralled by. Sherlock insisted John take notes for him, citing that he would find a use for them before, but John suspected they were more for his benefit than anything else. 

 

Sherlock insisted on multiple tests to be performed everyday, including pulmonary function tests. He made John graph them and noted the downward slope. 

John didn't graph them, but noticed the increasing amount of time Sherlock slept each day, the increasing number of times he coughed an hour, the declining weight balance that was too low to begin with, the seemingly impossible but occurring decrease in consumption of food despite the feeding tube, and the qualitative factors that could not be measured, but John knew they all pointed towards one thing. He blamed his increase in observation to his prolonged time with Sherlock, but knew he was only deceiving himself, as even a blind man could tell what was happening. 

Decline. Rapid decline. Leading to the inevitable conclusion.

John did his best to ignore it and keep himself busy.

Looking after Sherlock had increased from a full time job to the only thing his life consisted of.

 

People came to visit. Eventually the news must have spread, regardless of John's instructions relayed from Sherlock about keeping this information very hush-hush. They came in pairs usually, as misery loves company. 

Sherlock hated it.

John tolerated it.

Mrs Hudson secretly enjoyed it, as it kept her busy, cleaning up and making treats, all the while dutifully protesting that she was not their housekeeper. 

No one else really liked it. They did it. Perhaps out of a sense of duty. 

But everyone knew it was only out of that sense of responsibility, so none of the visits were particularly enjoyable.

 

John had to move some of the stuff out of Sherlock's room. His room was often a mess, but had recently been cleaned, sorted and various boxes were sitting around it, clearly labelled. 'Test tubes and glassware' and 'medical journals' were just a few of them. 

John knew why Sherlock had done this. Hated that he did. Hated that he had to. 

Hated a lot recently. 

He had to fit medical equipment in there. Just the basics, like Sherlock had requested. IVs, feeding tubes, oxygen, and other basic supplies. Nothing invasive. Nothing life sustaining. Just for comfort. 

And it was still too much for the man who demanded he be let out of the hospital the day after being shot in the chest. “Just the lung.” he insisted. John had refused, but gave in the next day. Sherlock was insistent like that.

So all this, even though Sherlock had approved it, felt out of place and wrong. 


	9. Chapter Eight

It was rather shocking to both of them when Sherlock lost his words.

John didn't know if he had ever seen that look on his face before. Surprised, shocked, frightened, and somewhat irked. And the tiniest hints of terror. 

Sherlock had words still. But they weren't his.

He had to beg, borrow, and steal. It was painful for both of them. 

He was bedridden by this point and Mycroft was pushing for around the clock nursing care.

John adamantly refused. 

“Not yet,” he had said. “I can still take care of him. Not yet.”

He was the only one who could understand how Sherlock took phrases from other people and strung them together to make things. 

To be honest, John was surprised of the large collection of quotes and phrases Sherlock had gathered over the years. 

Perhaps they had their own room in his mind palace, so that when pieces of it began collapsing on itself, Sherlock's language was taken, but the quote room was left untouched.

For now. 

 

Strangely enough, there were a few things left untouched. 'John', 'Idiot', 'Bored', and 'Obvious.' They were the most used. Maybe they never got put away on their proper shelves, and instead floated around inside his head, escaping all the damage.

 

John did cry. Rarely.

 

John thought Sherlock was asleep. Thought that he was crying quietly enough that no one would hear. Anyone but Sherlock. 

“John,” he called out in the dark. 

“Yeah?” he sniffed, madly wiping away tears and snot, completely embarrassed. 

Sherlock was silent for a second. Processing delay. Searching through stacks of words that weren't his to find ones that could fit.

“Death is terrifying because it is so ordinary. It happens all the time.”

But John could hear the frustration behind the words. 

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah it does.”

And Sherlock held John's hand until the tears dried up. And then some. For good measure.

“This is actually happening. And it hurts. And it’s amazing.”

John nodded and smiled, and patted Sherlock on the head while he scowled fiercely.

 

>   
>  “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart absent thee from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, to tell my story.”

> John nodded.

> “My blog.”

>   
> _And the notes I made you take,_ his eyes said.

> “I knew you had an ulterior motive for those,” John replied, eyes rolling. 

 

“What really raises one’s indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.”

“No kidding.”

“Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.”

John paused for a moment. “Yeah,” he whispered, “I'll try to remember that. Except you know how damn hard it'll be for me.”

There was silence. John figured Sherlock was done. But he spoke again, unevenly but urgently. “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is life not a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?”

John squeezed the hand of Sherlock's that he was holding reassuringly. 

_Yes,_ he though, _yes it was. No wonder you were always complaining about being bored. Perhaps on some level you knew that every day was crucial because it would all end so soon._

Sherlock's psychic listening skills were still entirely intact.

>   
>  “Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?”

> John shook his head. “You don't believe in fate.”

> His eyes said _but you do._  
> 

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

Lestrade whistled.

“When the hell did you become a bloody philosopher?”

Sherlock only grinned in response.

John liked when Lestrade came over, because he didn't act entirely awkwardly around Sherlock. He did at first, but he was doing better now. John also liked it because he could tell Sherlock enjoyed it.

Even with none of his words, Sherlock still loved proving how much of an idiot Lestrade was. And everyone else too. Donovan and Anderson came by once. It was obvious Lestrade had insisted. Sherlock ignored them entirely. 

As soon as they left, after standing there awkwardly, fidgeting and attempting to make conversation for 15 impossibly long minutes, Sherlock informed John, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

There was no protest from John. 

He knew the quotes were but a poor substitute for what he was actually thinking. The reason he ignored Anderson and Donovan entirely was because he had no insults good enough. There could be no insults good enough for them save for the ones that came from Sherlock. 

“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ,” Sherlock told Mrs Hudson morosely. She patted his hand comfortingly.

“I'll look after him dear, don't you worry.”

Sherlock thanked her.

She sang him a song that she would have sung to her own children, if she'd had any.  
“One need not be a chamber to be haunted, one need not to be a house. The brain has corridors surpassing material place,” he commented to no one in particular one day. Lestrade, Mrs Hudson and John were all present. 

Lestrade thought of the drugs and how haunted Sherlock had been when he first met him. 

Mrs Hudson thought of the loneliness Sherlock have before John.

John though of Sherlock's mind palace and the state it was in, broken beyond repair.

They all smiled thinly at different things but didn't share.

Sherlock knew.   
“You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around and why his parents will always wave back.”

John pondered that.

“It's hope,” he said simply. “And faith. Faith that they'll come back, and hope that they'll still be there.” Sherlock seems to ponder this for a moment.

“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.” Without even skipping a beat, he launched into his next comment. “Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.”

John gripped Sherlock's hand more tightly, barely, but just.

 

“Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy,” Sherlock whispered to Lestrade one day when he came to visit. John had gone out. Lestrade wasn't entirely sure what it was supposed to mean.

He just sat there with Sherlock for a while, pondering it. And then it came.

“You're talking about John aren't you?”

Sherlock's eyes still conveyed more than most men could in a speech.

“I'll take that as a yes then.”

His eyes approved.  
“It’s hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.”

“Not what that was intended to mean, but it's nice to know you still have a sense of humour.”

There was a pause. “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”

“Yeah,” John said quietly. “Sometimes they do.”

Searching, searching...

“Death is when the monsters get you.”

“Big Stephen King fan are you? Didn't think you were that type.”

Loading...

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”

John scratched his head. “You know, that actually made sense. I'm not sure if I should be concerned about that or not.”

Sherlock burst out laughing. John chuckled too. He was a bit concerned about Sherlock thinking this was utterly hilarious, but _personality changes_ he reminded himself. Sherlock calmed down rapidly, and was very serious as he informed John “The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.” John nodded in what he hoped was a sincere manner, although utterly baffled about what Sherlock was getting at.

 

Perhaps the most fun John had was when Mycroft came to visit. The only time he came to visit in fact. 

As soon as Sherlock noticed him, he glared, and whispered to John.

“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

It took John a good five minutes to catch his breath. Mycroft was not amused. 

 

Mycroft brought up the topic of nursing care.

John relented. Even he knew that he would be no good for Sherlock if he was exhausted.

He could tell Sherlock loathed them. He used his single words that were still left to talk to them. Talk at them.

“Idiot. Obvious. John.” The message in that was clear, even if not through the words, definitely through the tone. 

John was slightly flattered that Sherlock spoke in quotes to him, and others he was closer to, but not to the nurses. The list was short. John, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Molly. Occasionally Mycroft, but only to insult him. So... all the time. 

 

Sherlock would have been pleased.

One day while John was reading to him, something that no doubt would have been determined a waste of time by Sherlock if he still had the words and will to do so, he began seizing. 

John took note, just like Sherlock had once asked him to do.

Why, he wasn't sure. 

He added another drug to the arsenal that was Sherlock's collection.

When Lestrade came over, he commented that he hoped he wasn't there for a drugs bust, because they would be screwed. 

They both laughed uncomfortably. 

Lestrade went home and sat on his couch. He pondered for a good hour how John managed to do it. If he had to... well he wasn't sure he could.

 _Although,_ he supposed, _John probably never thought he could do this until it happened._

That's the way life works. 

And it's awful. 

 

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go,” Sherlock stated one day. John had to leave the room and stand in the kitchen so Sherlock couldn't see him cry.

Sherlock heard though. Saw the signs when he returned. Commented on it. John hated when Sherlock saw him cry. Or when he noticed that he had been crying. “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love.”

“I have no bloody clue what I'm supposed to do without you.”

“In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.”

“Well, yeah, but what move?”

Sherlock was silent. John would have though he'd fallen asleep if it wasn't for the gentle squeeze from his hand.

 

“John,” Sherlock whispered. “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

John frowned. He was pretty sure that Sherlock had deleted that movie, and was even more sure that he wouldn't have used those words unless it was for something specific. He preferred philosophers and classic writers to fantasy novels. 

He pondered it for a while. It didn't come to him until Sherlock found more words to help him out.

“Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes,” which he immediately followed up with “thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind,” he offered.

And John had the awful realization. He'd done the reading. He knew it was likely. But it was a part of Sherlock that he didn't think would be touched.

“Sherlock... have you gone blind?”

Sherlock nodded, and whispered “obvious.”

John set his head in his hands and willed himself not to cry.

Another sign of an awful decline.

 

John hated it at the end. 

He obviously knew he would, but he didn't expect the rage that he felt towards this disease, for taking this brilliant brain and reducing to to dust. Rage towards the world as a whole. Even towards Sherlock, because John still naively believed that maybe if he'd told him right away, that somehow he could have fixed it. 

He hated how Sherlock didn't have words of his own anymore, that the only ones that still remained were ones he had gathered up from various places. Words that could never express the depth of thought and tangled up feelings that John knew existed. 

He hated how Sherlock had known he would be reduced to this. Had known it would be a terrible way to die, and yet hadn't asked anything of John. John was thankful for that, knowing that he would have struggled with it, but at the same time absolutely knowing that he would have done it if asked, regardless of the consequences. 

But John supposed the rage he felt was better than the agony he could be feeling. 

 

“One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.”

The words were slurred and rasped, no longer connected but stranded on different breaths, but John heard them.

He smiled through the tears, squeezing Sherlock's hand comfortingly.

“Nietzsche,” he whispered back. 

Sherlock's eyes brightened, pleased with John for recognizing it. 

“The rest is silence.”

“Hamlet,” he whispered with a smile on his face and tears on his cheeks. 

And his eyes closed again.

Those were the last words he spoke. 

He held on, miraculously, for another week.


	10. Chapter Nine

John had known, right from the beginning, how terrible Sherlock's death would be. He wouldn't go to bed fine and never wake up. He wouldn't collapse one day in the middle of a sentence and just be gone. 

He would suffer, gasping for breath and his lungs ceased to work. Or perhaps his heart would forget how to beat. Or something so simple as the common bloody cold would take down the great Sherlock Holmes. 

And John hated that. He prayed it would be as simple as his heart ceasing to beat. He prayed a lot. 

 

Really, Sherlock was dead. Had died a week ago in fact. This wasn't him. It may have been his body, heart still beating, lungs still struggling to keep on breathing, but this was not Sherlock Holmes. The brilliant brain once contained in this transport had been eaten away, leaving only a shell of what had once been. 

 

It happened. It happened, and it happened about as well as it could have. Despite being on oxygen around the clock, John watched anxiously as Sherlock's sats dropped dangerously low with each shallow gasping shuddering breath. So it was almost a relief when they stopped. It took everything John had in him to not go into doctor mode and insist to Sherlock's broken body that it needed to start up again, because he damn sure wasn't ready for this. He didn't beg for just one more minute.

He held Sherlock's hand until it was no longer warm and kissed his best friend on the forehead before shakily leaving the room.

 

John noted numbly that it was exactly 6 months to the day that Sherlock had told him he was going to die. 

“ _I have 6 months. Maybe more. Probably less.”_

Those were his exact words. 

John wasn't entirely sure why, but this was hysterical.

He practically fell over laughing, gasping for breath and he writhed around on the floor.

 _It's not even funny,_ his brain told him, and he knew that. But he also knew traumatic experiences sometimes cause emotions to get entirely mixed up. Still, it didn't seem appropriate to be dying of laughter _poor choice of words_ when his best friend lay in the room next to him. Ceasing to exist. 

John's breath caught in his throat, and he realized he was no longer laughing, but sobbing. _Better._

And there was nothing else to do but curl up in a ball and cry until he could no longer form tears, until he dried out and his racking sobs tore him apart and he flew off in the slightest breeze, just dust on the wind.


	11. Chapter Ten

Sherlock had planned out his funeral arrangements in great detail.

 _He had the time,_ John supposed.

Mycroft didn't even try to butt in. Shock. Guilt. A dying man's wishes.

John didn't know. Didn't care. Was in a fog. _Not a drugged fog though, that would probably be more pleasant. No, just normal dull choking fog._

 

It was disappointingly sunny the day of the service. 

Of all things, Sherlock had wanted to be buried. 

John had expected something more... strange. Like being frozen, or being cremated and having his ashes scattered in the strangest place possible, or donating his body. (Although after all the things that he did to bodies in the morgue, John supposed some sort of karmic intervention was likely, so this was probably a better choice.)

But he was buried the first time and was buried this time. Except this coffin actually contained his body. Dressed as he lived, scarf and all. And that bloody violin.

John had wanted to keep the violin. _Sentiment._ But he'd have no clue what to do with it, and besides, Sherlock would need something to keep himself entertained.

There was no crying from him at the funeral. He simply held others as they cried. 

 

He had said it to John, must have been near the 5 month mark. “God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.” John couldn't agree more.

 

Another condition, John did have a brain biopsy done. 

Sherlock was right. Of course.


	12. Chapter Eleven

John was okay. 

That's what he told everyone. Told himself. Almost believed it too. 

He didn't want to stay in bed forever, didn't feel the need to find the highest building he could and fly off of it like Sherlock had once done to him.

He was keeping it together. Really.

He was as shocked as everyone else was. Just as disbelieving. But he managed to get out of bed every morning, still living in the flat where Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective, had lived and died. Made himself tea and everything, and sat down in his chair to read the paper. 

Sure, he felt a pang in his chest when the chair opposite him was perpetually lonely, but that was as bad as it was. 

He almost felt ashamed. No, he _did_ feel ashamed. 

It wasn't as if he felt happy, no, that certainly wasn't true. It was more of an... emptiness. Blank. Maybe he was a sociopath now, like Sherlock had once claimed to be. Was it really that long ago?

John let out a bitter laugh. 

He looked around, ashamed that Sherlock may have heard.

_He didn't. He's dead stupid._

 

He was restless. 

The surgery was fine, but Sarah wouldn't give him many shifts, and it was rather mundane. It had been fine when he had Sherlock to go home to and cases to run around on, but as the only thing in his life, it just couldn't cut it.

So he gave Sarah his notice, and she looked concerned but understanding. 

_Don't think you know what I'm feeling_ he wanted to tell her. 

But he never did.

 

He signed up to go back to Afghanistan.

He didn't think they'd let him, but they did.

He suspected a minor government official had a hand in it.

He didn't care. 

 

It wasn't the same, obviously. 

But it was familiar. It gave him that same feeling. A mixture of terror and awe and fear and calm. He'd missed it after Sherlock had gotten sick. He would never have admitted it to him, but it was true. 


	13. Chapter Twelve

It was a year since he had been told. Six months since Sherlock had left him. Six months since he had been able to form tears.

If John had believed in destiny or fate anymore, he would have found it, perhaps, amusing that he was to die that day. 

 

It was hot, but it was Afghanistan in the summer, so what the hell did he expect. Sunny too, just like that day when Sherlock had told him. It makes him smile to think about that last moment before his world was shattered, innocently admiring how much Sherlock reminded him of a cat. 

 

It was typical. Really. As typical as any day at war could be. They were out on patrol.

He saw it. He saw it and no one else did. That's what living and working with Sherlock would do to you. A gift and a curse. But he couldn't just ignore this. He'd never be able to live with himself. Because if he did nothing, they would die. 

All of them. (Marie, mother of two young kids. Nathan, wife at home, she wants children. Sammy is practically just a kid, doesn't even need to shave. Jackson, ageing mother at home who he promised to return to. Katia, Katia... John knew all about her. She wanted to become a doctor. Young and full of promise. Eager to learn. Beautiful girl with a boy waiting back home for her. Wants a family.)

Or John Watson. Half of an equation. Unbalanced. Non-whole. Incomplete. 

It was hardly a choice.

 

Blessedly, the next bit was a blur. 

It was bright and loud and upside down and inside out and so so painful and he wondered if that was it; if he was dead. But he opened his eyes again and all that sand was still there, bright and harsh.

 

There was nothing below his chest. He was thankful for that. Other than that... he couldn't really tell. Except perhaps his neck. It's bleeding. Not pumping though, just... gushing. Irrelevant.

 

He realized in that second how much his heart was hurting. Had been hurting. He'd been in shock for six whole months, wandering around seeing only grey. And now that the world was in colour again it was so bright and happy and agonizing that it hurt him to see. So he closed his eyes and prayed for the agony inside of him to stop, and perhaps let some of the bodily pain in, because he knew it was waiting in the wings. 

He was colouring the sand. Blood and tears. 

He was crying. 

_Odd._ He hadn't been able to cry since that day in the kitchen, and it had disappointed him. Shamed him. Now he was, but it was all going to be wasted. 

Just going to be soaked up in the sand next to the rusty spot where he poured his heart out in more ways than one. 

 

He could see them off in the distance. Safe. Because of him. Safe. And in the end, isn't that what anyone wants?

They were running towards him, which was thoughtful of them, but entirely unnecessary. He was going  to die here. He felt it. 

Strangely enough, he was completely fine with it. 

He didn't think _please god let me live,_ because that wasn't what he wanted. 

Instead, he closed his eyes and waited. 


	14. Epilogue

John had once heard that love was watching someone die.  
Truthfully, he had found it stupid and didn't understand what it meant.   
Now, he understood entirely. 

The Greeks had it right. Four different words for four different kinds of love. The highest form of love. Agape. Unconditional love for a person despite of character flaws or weaknesses, despite how screwed up and awful that person may be, how much they annoy you, and yet you still love them. That love was the truest and most rare and most powerful and yet never thought of.   
So John gave up saying “I'm not gay” and trying to explain it to people because how can they understand something they've never felt?  
They had never felt that heart wrenching panic when you came home and they weren't there, none of that agony you felt when they could be in danger, and nothing compared to when you were prepared to give up your life for theirs in an instant, a heartbeat, as long as it took for that impulse to travel from your brain to your muscles to jump in front of them and save their life.   
No, that was real love.

It's a fearful thing to love what death can touch. But John Watson did it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read it, and I'm sorry for the pain it may have caused you.  
> It hurt me to write, if that's any consolation.


End file.
